Bring It On

What I'm about to say will piss off any number of people.  But this is my rant.  If you don't like it, too bad.  'Cause it's the way I feel.

I am no longer a full-time mother.  And I hate hate hate that.  My new job demands over 50 hours a week.  Including the 2 1/2 that I put in today.  Today!  A Sunday!  The Sabbath!  So much for keeping all Ten of the Commandments.

My paid job is a full-time office position.  The entire family eats breakfast together before Mr. Gaelic and I carpool to our respective offices and Deirdre drives Maeve and herself to school.  We eat supper together every possible night.  Mostly five of seven, since Deirdre and Maeve both babysit and Deirdre has a boyfriend.

But there is no way that I can in good conscience call myself a full-time mother.  Other women, upon hearing me call myself that in the past, would say that they work as a whatever at such-and-such a place.  Then they'd tack on that they were full-time mothers as well.  Hell no you're not!

Can you be a full-time surgeon and a full-time high school principal at the same time?  No.  Then what makes you think you can be a full-time whatever and a full-time mother at the same time?  You can't.  Because you're not there for your kids full time.  When they need you.  When they come home from school upset and claim that nothing is bothering them, until three hours later when they've finally decided to tell you what's wrong.

I miss my kids terribly.  I was an awesome full-time mother.  It was my calling in life.  We chose for me to stay home with them and our finances suffered for the first few years after the transition.  Only in the last three years had we fully recovered financially from going down to one bread-winning salary. 

Mr. Gaelic has heard this rant before.  He understands that he's not a full-time father.  He understands that no parent who works at any job other than parenting can claim to be a full-time parent.  That goes for parents who work from home, too.  How does Junior feel when you say to him, "Mommy can't play with you right now because I've got to take this call and finish this report"?

I was fortunate to be able to be a full-time mother for 14 years.  I experienced my youngest's infancy and my eldest's graduation.  I also realize that taking a paying job is something I do for my children.  I am providing Finola with the opportunity to attend the best possible college for her.  I will continue in the paid workforce if Deirdre and Maeve want to attend prestigious private universities as well.  What I do I do for them.

I just wish there were some way to provide the best for them while providing the best for me and Mr. Gaelic.  We miss our former lifestyle of a home-cooked supper on the table at 6:30 every night, no lines at the grocery store or dry cleaner, and being able to do absolutely nothing on Saturdays and Sundays.

I want to be a full-time mom again.

Fight Club, Gaelic Style

Mr. Gaelic and I had a fight the other day.  About the laundry.  For more years than I can count, I have been the washerwoman for our family.  Until the girls each turned 12, at which point they were responsible for their own laundry.  But I still do the household linens and Mr. G's and my laundry.

Sometimes Mr. G helps with the laundry.  He does a terrific job of sorting the laundry, most of the time.  He knows which things go in the dryer and which need to be hung to dry, most of the time.  He even folds the laundry when it's dry. 

It's the folding that brought about the fight.

As I fold the laundry, I make sure that everything is neatly folded and placed in the proper place so that when it's time to pull on something there is no thinking about it.  Mr. G, on the other hand, doesn't turn items right-side out.  When the laundry come back to our room, I must then refold the majority of my clothes while his are ready for the drawers.

Trivial, I know.  But it's usually the trivial things that bug us and get under our skin and add up until we (people in general) really can suffer it no longer.  That usually leads either to keeping it bottled up and leading to resentment or lashing out at the other person with a scorecard of grievances.

In our case, I did neither.  I quietly told Mr. G that there was something bothering me that I wanted to talk to him about and asked when we could discuss it.  We pulled two chairs to face each other and I began explaining in a normal voice what was bugging me.  After every statement, he told me what he heard me say so that I was sure he understood me.  I told him how his actions made me feel and asked him if he could come up with a solution.  Again, he mirrored my words and expressed how he didn't mean for his actions (or inaction in this instance) to upset me.  He offered his own solution that I found acceptable.

And that was our fight.

No yelling, no nagging, no hurt feelings, no resentment, no stewing, no slamming doors, no stomping out of the room.  Nothing.  Except a big bear hug after it was over.  We should fight more often.

A How-To Guide of Menu Planning

Gail asked how I do my menu planning. It all started when I was a youngster. My mother didn’t read regular books. No dime-store romances, no New York Times bestsellers, no Book of the Month Club selection. No, she read cookbooks in the evening. And she loved to throw parties of all kinds, dinner parties, cocktail parties, open house buffets, cookouts, picnics, coffees, breakfasts, you name it, she threw it.

She taught me how to shop the ads. Take the grocery store weekly circulars and find the loss-leaders. Those are the items that are deeply discounted to get people into the store. Like the 99¢ per pound chicken legs or the 49¢ per pound baking potatoes. Then build a meal around chicken legs and potatoes. See what else is on sale, rinse, repeat.

Going organic has put a damper on shopping the ads. But it’s still helpful to have an idea about what to cook for supper on any given night. Now the formula is more along the lines of particular types of dishes on certain nights.

Ever since finding the Meat-Free Monday movement, Monday’s suppers hearken back to my childhood with a plate of three Southern-style veggie dishes and maybe a cornbread. Anything as long as it’s all vegetarian, but not vegan. That’s too foreign for my household.

The rest of the week consists of one night of a soup, one night of a nice meat-centric meal, one night of seafood, and one night of leftovers to clean out the refrigerator for the next week’s groceries. Some things get repeated during the week. Maybe it’s the meat-plus-two; maybe it’s the all-veggie meal.

Once the Crockpot has passed inspection, perhaps on nights when there is carpool duty, supper might be slow-simmered. My oven has a delay start and a cooking timer. There are nights when the meatloaf is placed in the oven with a delayed start time ensuring that it’ll be ready to come out right at supper time after the last extracurricular activity.

If you want to get started on menu planning, make a list of the things you cook regularly. Then rotate them throughout the month. There might be spaghetti, roast chicken, tacos, broiled fish, sloppy Joes, tuna casserole, meatloaf, chili, chicken tetrazzini, you get the idea. Fill in with some lighter meals such as warm winter soups or light chilled summer soups. Or something quick and fast like sandwiches and a can of tomato soup.

Use either method. The rotation plan is my default plan since I don’t shop the ads like my mother did. It’s hard to shop the ads when most of our food comes from the organic meat co-op or the farmers’ market. For that, you have to think on your feet about what’s fresh and what you can make with those. Or use the shop-the-ads plan basing your menus on what’s on sale at your grocery store. Here’s a hint. When I used to shop the ads, I didn’t limit myself to one store. There were three stores in a close radius whose ads I would shop.

Regardless of your method, have fun with your meals. And eat with someone else as often as you can.

Where Does the Time Go?

So it's a proven fact.  As we age, time actually speeds up.  Well, maybe it's not proven nor fact but it sure feels that way.  When we were kids, it took FOR-EVER for Christmas to get here.  Now we barely get the lights off the house and, voila, it's time to start planning your Thanksgiving feast.

Okay.  I can deal with that.  Life is whizzing by me way too fast.  But now?

Now it's the days, not just the years, that are breaking the speed limit.

When I signed up for the e-mail daily meditations from the Episcopal Cafe, I thought there would be one in the morning, sort of a paperless Forward Day by Day.  It's the environmentally conscious thing to do.  And I forget to pick one up at the back of the nave until halfway through the current quarterly publication.

But nooooooo!!!!!!

Not only do they send me the e-mail daily devotion, but they send me other devotions throughout the day.  Morning Prayer arrives in my inbox around 8:00 a.m.  The Noonday Office arrives around noon.  The Evening Prayer at 4:00 p.m.  And Compline around 8:00 p.m.

For any non-Episcopalians out there, Morning Prayer, Noonday, Evening Prayer, and Compline make up the Daily Office.  These are services for individuals throughout the day when we should offer prayers.  Episcopalians just don't use an adhan to remind us to pray.  Although some of us (me) need the electronic reminder to slow down during my busy day.

But those electronic reminders don't feel like my day is slowing down.  On the contrary, whenever errands have kept me busy for long stretches of time and I check my inbox to see if there are any urgent or funny e-mails, the Daily Office e-mails remind me that "It's already time for Evening Prayer?!?  Where has the day gone?"

Breathe.  Relax.  Just move everything that didn't get done today to tomorrow's to-do list.  And remember to slow down.

A Complete 179

After yesterday, the only way things could go was up. And up they did. But it didn't look like it would at the start of my day.

You know how you set a time for service "professionals" to be at your house. Regardless of what service they provide - be it the cable guy, the plumber, the refrigerator delivery man, you name it - and that time isn't a hard and fast rule. It's more of a suggestion.

Which means that the roofers putting a new roof on our garage were over an hour late. I rejiggered my schedule and voila! My day wasn't a complete and total disaster.

Around noon-ish, I got to have an awesome workout. My heart rate was in the cardio zone for a sustained period; I didn't have any pressure on my knees so no pain from yesterday. The air in the space was cool so that as my body temperature went up I didn't end up a complete mess.

I talked to a friend who I hadn't been able to connect with in quite a while. Since I expended so many calories, I treated myself to a healthy lunch of McDonald's topped off with a sweet tea.

Life is good.

Hunt of the Litter

Devotees of Flylady know how to clean thoroughly. She breaks your house into five Zones that you focus on deep cleaning for one week a month. Okay, not every month has that fifth week; so Zone 5 isn’t hit very often. Each day of the week for each Zone is a different part of the room(s) so that everything doesn’t have to be finished in one day.

When the Zone for the main bathroom rolled around recently, it got a major once-over. One day was scrubbing the toilet and around the base. One day was scrubbing the sink. Another day was washing out the trash cans. The day for washing out the trash cans is a good day to wash out the kitty litter pan and wipe down the wall near the pan.

It just happened to be a really nice day; so after scrubbing the pan, I left it outside in the sun to dry. And proceeded to run my errands.

Hmm, must have been gone too long because the cats greeted me at the door with a scolding meow. Quickly retrieving the litter pan and putting a liner in, I discovered that no one had put kitty litter on the grocery list and we were out. By the time we got back from the store with litter there was already a yellow puddle in the liner.

Such good cats! Waiting for their litter pan to be returned. But not caring if there was litter or not. At least my floors don’t smell like cat pee.

Agenda for Today

Hurry, hurry, hurry…

Before the next job…
Then there’s supper…

Why pancakes for supper? Because it’s…

Then home to…